The paper describing what underlies Aardvark and what it does:

Anatomy of a Large-Scale Social Search Engine
[vark.com...]

Good reading.

...while trust in a traditional search engine is based on authority, in a social search engine like Aardvark, trust is based on intimacy. We describe how these considerations inform the architecture, algorithms, and user interface of Aardvark, and how they are reflected in the behavior of Aardvark users.

...Since social search is modeled after the real-world process of asking questions to friends, the various user interfaces for
Aardvark are built on top of the existing communication channels that people use to ask questions to their friends: IM, email, SMS, iPhone, Twitter, and Web-based messaging.

Sounds great in theory but making a major social network is the definition of not private so if trust is based on intimacy... be intimate in a massive network?

The more these networks tie together the more I find myself enjoying a phone call or visit and the less I want to "chat online". I've lost trust over the past couple of years, not gained it. Time will tell if Aardvark regains that trust I guess but I'm not holding my breath, even the FBI want full access these days.

JS_Harris - the same here, I also pick up the phone more often, also on my sites, I clearly tell users that the only thing we collect is stats from which country they have entered the site, that is, no IP, private messages bla bla - I also think that the new thing on the net late this year and in the future away from sharing everything to more Private and secure surroundings for visitors.

Aardvark is not working
this isn't good for google >.<